Opportunities and Challenges of Data Publication: A Case from Purdue

Abstract

Beginning in 2011, there have been several policy changes directly affecting the management, preservation, and accessibility of publically funded research and resulting research data in the United States. On January 18, 2011 the National Science Foundation (NSF) required data management plans to be submitted with all grant proposals (National Science Foundation, 2013). On February 22, 2013, the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the President of the United States extended a similar requirement to all federal agencies that have a research and development budget of more than $100 million (Holdren, 2013). These requirements illustrate the need for further coordination and management of data as scholarship and traditional scholarship in integrated publishing solutions. The case study presented in this paper will illustrate an early initiative at Purdue University to integrate discrete data publications with traditional scholarly publications through leveraging new and existing repository platforms and services (Zilinski, Scherer, Bullock, Horton, & Matthews). Examination of the case study will involve a discussion of workflow integration between Purdue’s data repository, the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR); its traditional press, the Purdue University Press (PUP); and the institutional repository, Purdue e-Pubs. Publications and Data: Changes in Public Policy Changes in Public Policy There have been several recent policy changes directly affecting the management, preservation, and accessibility of publically funded research and resulting research data in the United States. In March 2002, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shared a draft statement on sharing research data and invited comments on the statement. In February 2003, the NIH finalized their statement on research data, stating all investigator initiated applications with direct costs greater than $500,000 in any single year will be expected to address data sharing in their application (National Institutes of Health, 2003). Furthermore, in 2008, the NIH released its Public Access Policy which requires funded research papers to be publically accessible on PubMed Central (National Institutes of Health, 2008). In January 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) required data management plans to be submitted with all grant proposals (National Science Foundation, 2013). In February 2013, the OSTP of the President of the United States extended a similar requirement to all federal agencies that have a research and development budget of more than $100 million (Holdren, 2013). Currently, agencies are crafting their responses to this memo and are asking for feedback from their communities. These requirements illustrate the need for further coordination and management of data as scholarship and traditional scholarship in integrated publishing solutions. Case Study: Purdue Libraries and the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP) A Service Model of Collaboration Purdue recognized the early need to develop distinct repositories that were focused on the specific and unique needs of content ranging from archival materials, traditional institutional repository materials, and data. With this in mind, Purdue created three distinct institutional repositories: e-Archives, the traditional archival repository; Purdue e-Pubs, the traditional institutional repository; and the Purdue University